Not that it mattered much. Soon enough her love affair would not be a secret. Any day now she ought to be able to announce that she already had a suitor. That she’d been madly in love all this time and had not said a word.
Oh, how she wished to see their faces then.
She eyed the door to the drawing room, where the butler had opened the doors. Tonight’s welcoming celebration was a large affair. She’d helped her mother send out so very many invitations, but there was only one guest she was impatient to see.
And it was not the man standing before her.
“Well, Sarah?” he prompted. The low tone had her casting Everly a sidelong look. “Plan on causing trouble this evening or shall I consider myself free to enjoy the festivities?”
She pressed her lips together and counted to ten—a trick her father had taught her. He too had a quick temper and an even quicker tongue. And while she missed her father every day, she had to admit that she often wished she had not inherited his tendency for outbursts and theatrics.
As an older gentleman, that tendency could be overlooked. Embraced even. No one blinked an eye when a marquess acted impulsively. But for her… Well, that was another story.
The flare of anger neatly under control, she tilted her head to grace Everly with an angelic smile. “Why, Lord Everly, you can do whatever you please this evening. And with whomever you choose.” She batted her eyelashes teasing. “I assure you, I will not miss your company.”
Something flared in his eyes, but he tamped it down just as quickly. “Is that so? Then you will not mind if I do not claim a dance this evening, I take it.” He glanced down at his black leather shoes. “I’m afraid these shoes are new and I’d hate to have them ruined on their very first outing.”
“Why you—” She looked away with a sniff. Beastly man. One time she had stepped on his toes and he never let her forget it. “I hadn’t even made my debut yet,” she muttered.
He chuckled beside her and she braced herself for the low rumble, the vibration of it, which she knew from experience would travel down her spine like a chill.
Like a tremble.
He lowered his voice further as the rest of her family talked amongst themselves about who would be arriving and when.
“Sarah, please, for your brother’s sake,” he said. “Try not to cause a stir with Mr. Stallworth this evening, hmm?”
She held her breath and made it to five before losing her patience with her father’s tiresome counting game. “I have waited eighteen months,” she said, her voice as calm and quiet as she could manage. “Eighteen months of no contact with the man I love after someone denied me a farewell.”
His brows arched high, but she held up a hand to stop his protest.
“If you knew half as well as you thought, Lord Everly, you would know I would never do anything to ruin this joyous week. I would never do that to Max or Marigold. But Mr. Stallworth will be here this evening, and I will speak to him.”
She tipped her head up higher, her smile speaking more eloquently than she ever could of all her hopes for this evening. “I know for a fact that Mr. Stallworth is quite taken with my dancing abilities, even if some men are not. Now, if you will excuse me…”
She didn’t wait for an answer as she walked away from him, off to join Marigold, who was anxiously awaiting her two closest friends, Lily and Daisy. Until they arrived to help her navigate the sea of curious partygoers, Sarah was the poor girl’s sole buffer and she took her job seriously.
She hadn’t been exaggerating about not wishing to disrupt the happy occasion. She merely wanted a taste of her own happiness, that was all. Some assurance that her happy ending was coming.
She should have known Everly wouldn’t let it lie so easily. He caught her by the elbow when she went to join the others in the main hall. “Sarah, please, just—”
She stopped and looked up at him when he cut himself off with a huff of frustration. His dark gaze bore into her as he spoke. “Just give yourself time to get to know him. All right? That is all I ask.”
She jerked her arm from his grasp, her skin tingling where he’d held her. Her breathing felt too erratic, her corset too tight. I know him, she wanted to say. We might not have spent much time together, but the time we’d had was special. It was unique and there had been affection. A connection.
She was sure of it. And yet, the words seemed to be trapped in her throat when she went to tell Everly so. With his dark gaze so fierce and intense, with her mother and Marigold waiting for her to join them…she swallowed the words of explanation and gave a short nod instead. “I know him well enough,” she said stiffly. “But I do promise that even you will find no fault with my behavior this evening.” She turned to walk away but paused. “Not because of you,” she said, just a little too sharply. “But for Max and Marigold’s sake.”
He arched a cynical brow but she did not give him a chance to answer. Fortunately, the arrival of the first guests saved her from having to be polite one moment longer than necessary. What did she care what Everly thought—of her or Mr. Stallworth?
Just because Mr. Stallworth did not have a title was no reflection on his character. And his lack of communication these past eighteen months had been due to him being away on a voyage, anyone could understand that.
As for his accusation that he was a rogue, a rake… Pfft.
Though their time together had been brief, she knew a pure heart when she met one and Mr. Stallworth was most definitely a man of quality. She’d prove it to Everly and everyone else.
And then they’d see that not only was she really in love but her judgment was sound. She was a woman now, and able to make good choices with her life.
4
Theo glared at Sarah. Her nose was in the air again.
Granted she had an adorable nose and an even cuter chin when it was angled up like that, exposing the long slender column of her neck, but still.
She annoyed him to no end.
They were once again locked in a battle of wills. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He wished to shake some sense into her. Hold her in his arms and make her see the error in her thinking. Stallworth was nothing that she believed.
She’d painted a lovely picture of the man with her youthful and wholesome brush but paintings were often fiction. The artist's eye could create the ideal from the mundane, making a man who was less than average into a work of art.
Then he snorted at his own thoughts. What was it about Sarah that made him wax poetic? Dramas, plays, paintings. Who was the fool again?
At least Sarah had real beauty and a great many redeemable qualities. He could justify his own behavior. What he didn’t understand was why she insisted on putting that slimy merchant on a pedestal.
But the air he’d been holding in rushed quickly from his lungs again.
He knew why.
Sarah had fallen in love.
And not with Theo.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. What was he thinking? He didn’t want her to love him. Did he?
He was happy being the emotionally distant rake. Keep his dalliances light and his emotional connections even lighter. The one who didn’t end up hurt because he never gave his heart away.
And falling for Sarah, that was most definitely a heartbreak waiting to happen. She’d been nothing but clear on that account. She was already in love no matter how unworthy the man.